Northern New York follies

Darrel, above the fray

If you were to hear someone commenting on state government say "Somebody is lying," you probably wouldn't be all that surprised. So I am stumped why so many people are in such high dudgeon over the most recent dust-up swirling around state Sen. Darrel Aubertine.

After hearing all sides of the issue, I'm absolutely convinced that Darrel is telling the truth when he says the governor's office approached him about filling the soon-to-be-vacant CEO position at the New York Power Authority. I suspect it happened like this: Gov. Paterson's chief flunky, Charles O'Byrne, called Darrel and said "We want to talk to you about the Power Authority job – can you come see me?" And Darrel, being the upstanding Northern New Yorker that he is, said sure, and went and listened to the governor's pitch as delivered by O'Byrne. And then he politely said "No thanks, I got elected to the Senate and I'm going to stay a senator until the people vote me out."

This kind of stuff happens all the time in Albany. When someone goes to that trouble to ask you if you're interested in a job, it isn't a lie to say you've been given an offer. Nothing here is weird (unless you're Dave Renzi, who must be saying "What the hell?!?"). It doesn't get weird until Gov. Paterson tells Fred Dicker that he did not offer Darrel the job – and he blames it on a misinterpretation. The governor, for all practical intents and purposes, lied.

Think this over: first he says he hasn't seen Darrel this month, and now that he thinks about it, he didn't see him last month either. THEN he says Darrel misinterpreted, um, well, SOMETHING that made him think he was offered the job. Does that make sense to you?

The governor COULD have said "We talked to Darrel about the job because as a north country legislator and member of the energy committee, he's got a lot of qualifications we're looking for. But Darrel wants to be a senator." That would have just shut everyone up. Instead, he did his best at Albany's version of "Who's on first?" and now nobody can leave it alone.

Here's a few things about Darrel I'd like to clear up NOW, before this gets any farther out of hand: he is NOT on Obama's short list for VP. He is NOT under consideration to be named the next Secretary General of the U.N. The U.S. Olympic Committee is NOT going to offer him the women's soccer coaching job. He is NOT being vetted to fill a vacancy on the federal Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals. He is NOT being groomed as the next CEO of Microsoft.

He is, however, the incumbent 48th District senator, and by picking an opponent with no political experience and no name recognition and no particular public cachet, the Republicans are pretty much trying to insure he stays that. Way to go, Sen. Darrel.

posted by Kentsboss @ 2:08 PM